Saturday, 30 June 2012

This week I'm on theme for Sepia Saturday and commentary from Wimbledon is on the radio as I write this post.

I'm unable to decipher the names written along the top and bottom edge; the side inscription reads "Winter 1894 - Tennis - Parthie".
I'm not really convinced that the young lady leaning on a parasol in the centre of the photograph is up for a game of tennis!

Saturday, 16 June 2012

This is Nursie, a few months old in 1976, doing that funny kitten thing of suddenly flopping and falling asleep right in the middle of running round creating havoc. Nursie got her name from Night Nurse cold and flu remedy (whenever the Night Nurse advert came on TV she'd run to the screen and stare at it, absolutely mesmerised) not Night Nurse the famous racehorse. She grew up to be a beautiful ginger tabby with white socks and bags of personality.

Saturday, 9 June 2012

It's the weekend again and time for another instalment of Sepia Saturday.

A postally unused card of the Winter Garden at the Regent Palace Hotel, London, from the 1920s. I stayed here on holiday a couple of times in the 1950s with my parents and thought it was all terribly grand. The hotel opened its doors on May 16, 1915 and closed on December 31, 2006; it's now been converted into a "£300m retail development".
You can read more about the Regent Palace Hotel here and about the recent conversion here and here.

Friday, 8 June 2012

Postmarked Ballinea, Mullingar, January 8, 1911, with a rather cryptic message on the reverse: "Hope you will come over tomorrow without fail. I will meet you where I told you so do not disappoint me. Yrs truly, M. McCormick".

Saturday, 2 June 2012

This weekend marks the Queen's Diamond Jubilee; today's photograph was taken in Hensall during village celebrations for her coronation way back in 1953.

This is me (aged 7) in our garden just before taking part in the fancy dress parade. I'm dressed up as the Knave of Hearts and that look of concentration on my face is probably concern about not dropping my tray of jam tarts. Mum made my red and white costume; this was in the days before tights and I remember her boiling stockings and knickers in a pan of dark red dye, then padding the knickers and sewing them to the stockings.